Ulver: Childhood’s End

The eclectic Norwegian metallers have got it covered...

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Yet another covers album?! It’s enough to make you wonder where all the originality has gone, eh? Wrong! Because this is a truly astounding piece of work. The Norwegians have been painstakingly building up a bundle of covers over the past four years, and now it’s all here on a collection that’s remarkable on all levels. Not only does it celebrate a lot of the 60s psychedelic bands who’ve inspired Ulver, but also adds an extra, authentic dimension to every song here.

Some of the group’s choices will be comparatively obvious. The likes of The Byrds, the Electric Prunes, Chocolate Watch Band and the 13th Floor Elevators are sufficiently well known to almost be taken for granted. But the real gems lie elsewhere in the mix.

To hear the band take on tracks from Curt Boettcher, Common People and Music Emporium is joyous. These are fairly obscure acts unless you are a psychedelic aficionado. But the quality of the homage paid to these artists here is so compelling and cleverly arranged that it might hopefully persuade a few to check out the originals.

For Ulver this is clearly a labour of love. For the rest of us it’s a beautifully crafted tribute.

Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021